[open-ish] catch-all?

[substances]

[Just a place for coffee/necrozoetic to store threads. Hit me up in PM if you want something, or just throw me a random starter.]

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when there's nothing but darkened sound

[dial6forhorror]

Ben's been a little scarce for a day or so.

He still looks in on Klaus (his Klaus, he's made note of the tiny differences, the way They react, he's learning to tell them apart) and makes sure he's not high or distraught but he spends some time on the roof, thinking and keeping to himself.

He finally turns up when Klaus is alone, not really feeling much except that odd echoing memory of upset. "Do you think They're disgusting?"

[substances]

This place is seriously like a fever dream, sometimes he thinks maybe he's actually just hallucinating this whole thing while on his death bed after an OD on acid or something. But it just keeps happening.

Klaus notices when Ben is absent for a day or so, because he's been (to the best of his knowledge) staying mostly sober, and so Ben should be around nagging or chatting or trying to help him train again. And sure Klaus has seen some version of Ben, but not his Ben (or at least the Ben he's chosen to call his Ben, because he Feels Right).

It's a relief when Ben turns up, walking in on Klaus sitting in his room in a corner, legs folded and a massive sketchbook rested across them, patiently drawing a repetitive pattern that looks pretty as a whole. Glancing up, Klaus smiles, is about to greet his brother when Ben bluntly asks him if he thinks 'They' are disgusting.

There's only one 'They' that Ben would be talking about.

"No. Why?"

[dial6forhorror]

Ben stands there for a bit, then comes to sit with Klaus, back to the wall and his knees tucked up to his chest. "Just something someone said. I know Sir said it was disgusting. Nauseating. I don't know if he meant Them or the way I manifest them or..." He shrugs.

"It just reminded me of him. What he used to say. And since you started being able to make me more real, I've started being able to feel things a bit. Emotionally. I haven't missed that."

[substances]

When Ben comes over to sit down beside him, Klaus makes room, even though he doesn't really have to, and tilts his sketchbook so Ben can see. It's instinct, because Klaus has never really been able to distinguish how he interacts with ghost Ben from how he interacted with him as a living breathing person. Besides the obvious no-touching-because-phasing-through-him-is-creepy thing.

Klaus wrinkles his nose at the memory of their father that Ben talks about, and sighs, moving his pencil to a different part of the page and almost absently starting to doodle tentacles coming up from the bottom of the page.

"Well, how much of what old Reggie used to say do you still take to heart?"

He knows the answer - too much. But still, he says it in that challenging sort of way, like a petulant kid rebelling against an absent father.

"So the person hurt your feelings?"

[dial6forhorror]

How much does he take to heart? Once he died, he was never really mentioned again by Sir, and no one else was going to talk about Them specifically, preferring to remember the person, not the portal that killed him.

"It wasn't about what Sir said. It's about regular people thinking and saying the things that he did. Agreeing with him." People unaffected by sentimentality towards the host.

"... I guess so. But it feels really childish and dumb put like that and now I'm regretting saying anything."

[substances]

Klaus tilts his head in acknowledgement when Ben says it's not about what Reggie had said, but about regular people thinking and saying the same things. That makes sense, and he huffs a little, still doodling tentacles that coil and curl and twist around each other, his feelings venting themselves out in the form of the drawings on the page, like they'd done so many times on his walls as a kid.

"I mean. Ol' Reggie told us our feelings didn't matter and he was wrong about that too. The old bastard was wrong about a lot of things."

A shrug, and he looks down at the book, starts drawing little suction cups on the bottoms of the tentacles.

"Knowing he was wrong doesn't make it easier to talk about, does it?"

[dial6forhorror]

Ben folds his arms over his body and huffs, pulling up his hood and wriggling deeper into his own clothing, like he can escape the ideas in the conversation if he gets far enough into shadows.

"He wasn't always wrong. He wasn't kind, and he wasn't always right, and he wasn't much of a father or a human being but he was a fairly solid scientist." Five was not ready to travel in time when he did. Allison relied on her powers in the wrong ways. "He was wrong sometimes. He was right sometimes. And I can't tell the difference when I'm involved."